Is Wigan, Greater Manchester a nice place to live?

Is Wigan a nice place to live or is Wigan rough? Forget local estate agents sales speil and local councillors who say that Wigan is on the up an up, it's time for a bit of reality. Cold hard statistics culled from the Police, the Indices of Deprivation and the latest census. Is Wigan truly a nice place to live, or are Blackrod, Hindley and Ince in Makerfield a lot better? Time to find out.

What are the crime levels like in Wigan?

Using the latest Police street crime figures (typically from 3 months ago) we have compiled a table of the most voilent Policing areas in and around Wigan. Naturally the more urban and more central areas will have a higher rate of crime, but often you can be surprised when that is not the case and that is the area you want to move to.
Policing Area Voilent Crimes
Ince-in-Makerfield 4
Marylebone 3
Springfield 3
Poolstock 1
Top Lock 0
New Springs 0
Douglas 0
Pennington Green 0
Boar’s Head 0
Red Rock 0

The English Indices of Deprivation also has crime statistics for Wigan. These statistics are published by the government every 2-3 years. They are a measure of how likely you are to be a victim of personal or material crime in an area, such as muggings or burglary. We've taken the rank average for wards in and around Wigan and compared them. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst.

You least likely to be a victim of crime in the Standish with Langtree ward.

Ward Average rank in England
Standish with Langtree (Best) 22082/32845
Winstanley 16918/32845
Hindley Green 15881/32845
Worsley Mesnes 11418/32845
Hindley 11128/32845
Wigan Central 8131/32845
Wigan West 7897/32845
Pemberton 6652/32845
Douglas 4292/32845
Ince (Worst) 3414/32845
Reader Opinion:

Wigan, the locals take no pride in their health or appearance

Your Health in Wigan

If you are thinking of moving to Wigan, you want to know if the place is likely to put you on a downward spiral of ill health. We've taken the healh question from the latest census to find out and how Wigan compares to its neighbouring local authorities. People were asked to rate their current health from very bad to very good;

Town Very Bad Bad
Wigan (Wigan) 1.49% 5.7%
Salford 1.7% 5.87%
Bolton 1.4% 5.23%
St. Helens 1.79% 6.48%

The English Indices of Deprivation also has health statistics for Wigan. They measures the risk of premature death and the impairment of quality of life through poor physical or mental health, lovely! We've collated an average rank for all the Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA) in each ward in and around Wigan. The table below shows ten wards in this area, from the best to the worst;

Ward Average rank in England
Winstanley (Best) 15161/32845
Standish with Langtree 14962/32845
Hindley Green 10593/32845
Wigan Central 9888/32845
Worsley Mesnes 8048/32845
Hindley 7316/32845
Wigan West 6820/32845
Douglas 3996/32845
Pemberton 3756/32845
Ince (Worst) 2389/32845
Reader Opinion:

Leigh: A Hive of Villainy in Lesser Manchester

Deprivation in Wigan

Using the English Indices of Deprivation statistics, we've collated the average Index of Multiple Deprivation rank of all the LSOAs in the wards in and around Wigan. In layman's terms, this is how rough the ward is based on mutiple measures of deprivation including; employment, income, health, crime, housing and outside space.

Ward Average rank in England
Winstanley (Best) 24412/32845
Standish with Langtree 24369/32845
Hindley Green 16210/32845
Wigan Central 13705/32845
Hindley 12457/32845
Worsley Mesnes 11847/32845
Wigan West 10200/32845
Douglas 6077/32845
Pemberton 5957/32845
Ince (Worst) 3889/32845

Average rent in Wigan

Every six months the Office for National statitics publishes a snapshot of rental costs. These statistics for Wigan are dated September 2021. They are split into three figures, the lower quartile, mean and upper quartile. If you recieve housing benefit or the housing benefit section of Universal Credit, the lower quartile is at the top limit of what would be affordable. The mean is the average you'd expect to pay for a rental property and the upper quartile is the average rental cost of the most expensive 25% of properties in Wigan.

Weekly Gross Pay and Hourly Pay in Wigan

If you are thinking of moving to Wigan, you'll want to know how much you can earn in a job in the town. The government publish regular statistics on gross weekly pay and pay per hour.

How grim is your Postcode?